Feeling whole again: $900

After reading the last post, you’d probably think the weekend couldn’t possibly get any worse. But then you’d be wrong. Or at least I was wrong.

Jenni and Patrick had a Sunday afternoon date to go see the latest Harry Potter extravaganza at the neighborhood movie house (how ’bout that for an old-fashioned and seemingly impossible phrase?). And off they went around noon, only to have the car die within six blocks of their destination. But it was worse than that: they were practically in the middle of an intersection.

I hopped on the bike and started toward them in the midday heat, knowing what was to come: a repeat of Saturday. Jenni got a hold of a friend who was going to join them for the movie, and arranged a ride with her the rest of the way, and the four of us got the van pushed out of harm’s way.

Strangely, though, the brand-new battery was dead: absolutely no power whatsoever dead. And the car would start if jumped, but wouldn’t keep running if I took the jumper cables off of the car. So, for barely 20 hours, I had been running entirely on the energy provided by the battery.

I called dad to ask for a rescue ride. And while waiting, I tried to decide what was worse: being outside in the sun and the heat, or being in the car, out of the sun, but still in the heat. I settled on the car, but mostly because the seating was more comfortable. Once dad arrived, we pushed the car off of the busy street onto a side street, and then he took me home.

All of my clothes were soaked with sweat: shirt, t-shirt, shorts, underwear, even my socks–and honestly, my feet don’t sweat much, which is odd when compared to the rest of me. But I did the quick-change and called a nearby shop that was open on Sundays and offered tows.

The verdict came a couple of hours later: dead alternator, but none of his suppliers had any they could deliver before the end of the day. So the wholeness of having ready transportation for the family would have to wait a day.

It didn’t help that I felt wiped out and tired and sore and vaguely headachey as a result of the weekend’s sweating. But that just kind of iced the cake, so to speak. Getting to work was going to be a chore. But this morning, I still didn’t feel great, and with all that had gone on through the weekend, I needed time to recover and try to stay cool and hydrated.

Around 2:30, the car was done. The good news was that all was fixed, and the belts that I knew needed replacing anyway were replaced as part of this job, so the money already earmarked for the car repairs was indeed used for that purpose (an odd event in my life, really). So we are again whole, all for the low, low price of just over $900.

Now, I just need to get the weather to cool off so I can stop sweating constantly. Even the industrial air conditioning inside buildings isn’t cutting it with the humidity where it is these days. Maybe I’ll wear my swim trunks and a tropical shirt to work tomorrow. Or not.